Conventional powered band saws include a continuous saw blade which extends between two spaced drive wheels or sprockets which are vertically spaced both above and below a cutting table. The band saw blade passes through a slot in the cutting table and is normally driven by a motor which may be mounted to a frame below the cutting table or within a housing positioned above the cutting table. During normal use when the motor is activated to drive the band saw blade, a workpiece is moved into relationship with a cutting edge of the band saw to thereby effect necessary cuts in the workpiece.
Unfortunately, conventional band saws have a significant portion of the saw blade exposed between the housing and the band saw table in order to provide space to maneuver a workpiece relative to the blade when the workpiece is supported on a support surface of the table. Because of this exposed length of cutting blade, numerous accidents have occurred by workers or operators accidently contacting the blade.
To improve the safe operating characteristics of conventional band saws, there have been a number of innovations developed to protect workers from accidental contact with the normally exposed portion of the saw blade. However, conventional band saw blade guards do not provide adequate protection to prevent accidental contact with the saw blade under many circumstances. Often, conventional guards can be inadvertently moved from a covering relationship with respect to the saw blade thereby creating a possibly hazardous condition wherein an operator can accidently make contact with the unprotected blade. In other types of conventional guards, the guards, when released from a safety position, are retained in a non-covering position until action is taken to manually move the guards to a covering position. The reliance on manual return of a guard to a safety position creates a further potentially hazardous condition.
In addition to the foregoing, many guards which have been designed for use with band saws only provide a structure which shields a portion of the length of the band saw blade and do not provide any safety structure for preventing accidental contact of a worker's hands with the saw blade when a workpiece is being maneuvered relative to the saw blade. That is, many guards, when moved to permit access to the band saw blade for cutting of a workpiece, allow a worker's hand to be moved without obstruction at substantially any point relative to the cutting edge of the band saw blade and, there is no shield or barrier to prevent accidental contact by the operator with the exposed portion of the blade while maneuvering a workpiece.
In view of the foregoing, there remains a need, not only to provide a band saw guard which is more reliable and failsafe and which will function to prevent accidental contact with the band saw blade whenever the band saw is operating and a workpiece is not positioned relative to the blade for cutting, but also to provide for a shield to prevent accidental engagement with the saw blade when the blade is being used to cut a workpiece.